


Prompt 458 (Death Comes)

by Alex_Chesterfield



Category: Original Work
Genre: Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Chesterfield/pseuds/Alex_Chesterfield
Summary: Nothing had gone right all morning, which is how I knew he was coming.





	Prompt 458 (Death Comes)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt 458](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/339567) by Deepwaterwritingprompts. 



Nothing had gone right all morning, which is how I knew he was coming.

It was a family legend. Meant only for our namesake. Morsquaerit. At some point in your life after your eighteenth birthday, you would have a day so terrible, so out of your favor, something that you could not  _possibly_ recover from without near-divine intervention. A day that would tear your soul and life apart so terribly beyond repair, that even the brightest of us would wish, even if just for a split second… for death.

… and then he would come.

Morsquaerit.  _Death Seeks_.

I was only twenty three, when an unmistakable chill dripped down my spine, even though it was a chill I had never felt before. It was new, but at the same time, so familiar. The veins in my arms felt like ice, and I knew.

The morning had started when my alarm failed to go off, for the one time it would prove to be too much. I sprung out of bed in a rush, but only ended up tangling myself tight in my sheets like a spider’s web. That stole a precious thirty seconds that would probably be the main saboteur for the rest of my day.

I brushed my teeth, and fixed up my hair, and that was all I knew I would really have time for. Breakfast was secondary at that point. Hell, not even that.

Upon throwing on a jacket, my hand tore straight through the left elbow, and I shouted in frustration. There would be time to at  _least_ put my arm through the right hole when I got to my internship; hopefully, that would help save my image a little.

So I hurried out of my apartment and down the stairs, all of my files in hand, and I rushed to the bus stop around the corner…

Just to watch it drive off the moment I spotted it.

Well, I had told myself I was going to start jogging in the mornings.

… Though that was  _supposed_ to only be a habit I worked into on days when it  _wasn’t_ raining buckets.

I shoved my papers into my jacket, running through toe-deep puddles and across streets with red-lit crosswalks, ignoring the howl of car horns in protest of my abusing my right of way as a pedestrian. It didn’t matter what they thought, the threat of being hit meant nothing. My future was on the line here.

I rushed into the building without a second glance towards anyone or anything. opting to take the stairs rather than the elevator. My lungs were burning, I was starving and exhausted, but if I could get up the stairs in a decent amount of time, maybe,  _maybe_ …

Maybe I wouldn’t run right into my bosses’ office in the middle of a meeting.

Which is exactly what happened.

I was an hour and a half late, soaked to the bone, in a broken jacket, and the files I had brought with me were wrinkled and torn from my running. And I had walked in on my bosses’ most important meeting of the year.

Needless to say, I was out of a job in the next five minutes.

I was in the elevator out of the building, and I was just shoving my arm through the jacket sleeve proper, when the chill hit me.

And I knew.

 

* * *

 

I stumbled back into my apartment, weary and worn and completely and utterly  _dead inside_.

I had not had a single bite of food to eat all day. I had lost a shoe in a sewer grate, and wandering around town had gifted me with the privilege of a mugging. I had been late to lunch with my best friend earlier, so they bailed on me. And then, I missed the bus home, so I ended up having to walk  _again_.

I fumbled for the light switch to my left, and upon flipping it…

Absolutely nothing happened. I swear I paid the electricity bill.

I flopped onto the couch bonelessly, in the dark, and decided to check my phone… which died the moment I pulled it out of my pocket. I threw the device down on the couch, placing my head in my hands.

This was it. This was how it happened.

I sat, and I waited. I didn’t have to wait long. I knew he was here the moment the lights turned back on. I closed my eyes.

“… How long until I take over?” I asked, not knowing, or caring to know, where exactly he was in the room yet.

“Hey, come on; don’t worry about that yet.” His voice was just as grated and gravelly as I had expected, but not nearly as deep. He didn’t sound inhuman, just very sick. “You hungry? I bet you’re hungry. I brought burgers.”

“Vegetarian.”

“Hmm? Oh, shit, okay. Just a sec.”

From behind my eyelids, I saw the lights switch off again. I was left alone for about a minute, before the light switched back on.

“Pasta!” he exclaimed, right in my ear. I flinched away, and he cackled. A hand came to rest on my shoulder, and then a hot bowl of…  _something_ , was placed in my lap. “Alfredo good?”

I nodded weakly. The voice behind me sighed.

“You’re afraid to open your eyes, aren’t you?”

I nodded again.

“Look, Morty– can I call you Morty? Mortimer is so  _wordy_ – Morty, if you’re going to be working with the dead for the rest of your life, you may as well start getting used to looking at them. It’s just as rude not to make eye contact as it is to stare.”

I knew he was right. I groaned, and forced myself to face the facts. I opened my eyes, and recoiled… unnecessarily.

Death was… Death looked like a regular guy. He had no eyes, but he looked human. I stared for a moment longer, before he shouted “Boo!” and made me flinch. He cackled again.

“Tada! Listen, the Dead look just the same as they did in life, you’re not going to be faced with anything morbid. Eat your pasta, we’ve gotta talk about your contract.”

Death stood up, and moved to plop down onto the couch next to me with a grunt. He still had a burger, a monstrous and sickly looking thing, and he took a large bite out of it, before pointing at the TV. A station I wasn’t familiar with turned on; it looked like death metal.

As I took a careful, measured bite of my pasta, Death watched me with approving eyes. “You won’t go hungry again with this job, Morty, I promise. You can have as much pasta as you want. Oh yeah, and bills? Don’t worry about that. Sure, the hours are hell– pun intended– but you’ll be living easy.”

“I wanted to have a normal job for at *least* five years before you showed up,” I lamented.

“I know, I know, and I’m sorry, but our Riverman is set to retire in a month, and you’ll need training on how to work the motor for the boat. You can play your own music, if that’s any consolation. So if you wanna be a dick and play “Highway to Hell,” that is completely within the rules. Your passengers may not be happy, but you’ll get a good laugh.”

I narrowed my eyes at Death, who was trying hard not to snort around another mouthful of burger. “Okay, so what’s the pay?”

“Okay, pay is,” he informed me, “we cover any and all house-related bills and taxes no matter where you live, so long as it’s either rent, or if you buy, under $200,000 dollars. Credit card spending is up to you, and anything in that similar vein. Starting pay itself is $15.75, increases exponentially starting out at $1.50 the more years you work. You could be making $70 an hour in the next ten years.”

I had to admit, that was impressive. My emotion must have showed on my face, because Death smiled over at me approvingly. “Yeah? Sounds good, right? I mean, you’re working ten hour days four days of the week, but that’s three days off. We don’t acknowledge government holidays however, with Labor Day and religious holidays being the only exceptions. You can take sick days as often as you need so long as someone can cover your shift, but I’m warning you, that’s not often. It’s not that we hire the bare minimum, we hire just enough to keep things running smoothly.”

Ah. So even the afterlife wasn’t exempt from capitalism. At least it was semi- _reasonable_ capitalism. They were paying my bills and I was starting out with a fairly decent pay. “What about college?” I asked.

“Seriously? You’re considering college with the hours you work?”

“Depending on when you’ll let me go,” I replied, “I want to know I’ll have had a secure education so I have a better chance at getting something decent in the work force. Oh, and what about insurance?”

Death grumbled. “Wow, okay, you’re one of  _those_. Listen, I know that you and your family don’t  _enjoy_ being in indentured servitude to me, but come  _on,_ have you heard your benefits so far?”

I just arched a brow, and Death groaned.

“Okay, we pay for half of your college, and the only insurance we offer is health and life. Ironic, I know, don’t rub it in.”

I laughed, but only a little. “Okay, I’m good with that. When do I start training?”

“Uh, soon as you can, really. Preferably you’d come at around seven in the morning, but anytime before noon is good. I mean, I’m sorry about sabotaging what you already had, but you know, we just needed you to be completely available. Ruining your human life is the only reasonable way we can ease you into the new job.”

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “Okay. Listen, my family warned me this would be happening, I just… wasn’t anticipating it to be so soon. And my alternative if I don’t want to do this… is it really dying?”

“Ayup.” Death popped his lips. “That was the deal your great great great great great something or other made to break the other curse of ‘everyone dies super young and unsatisfied.’ You either take the job, or I take you on the boat to the Underworld myself.”

So that’s how it was then. I sighed again and closed my eyes, knowing this unbearable chill in my spine would go away one way or the other.

“See you tomorrow, then.”

When I opened my eyes, Death was gone, but there was a business card on my coffee table. I didn’t need to look at it to know what it said or who it was from.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: <http://chesterfield-ramblings.tumblr.com/>
> 
> Twitter: <https://twitter.com/AlexChester_X_>
> 
> Instagram: <https://www.instagram.com/alexchester_x_>


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